The Student News Site of Laguna Blanca School

The Fourth Estate

Current News
The Student News Site of Laguna Blanca School

The Fourth Estate

The Student News Site of Laguna Blanca School

The Fourth Estate

Against the Stereotypes of Hunting: A Sports Commentary

Against the Stereotypes of Hunting:  A Sports Commentary

Humans, generally speaking, are all the same. Scientifically speaking, there are not many differences between all the humans of the world.
However, despite our unvaried biological roots, we are separated into many different groups and classifications dictated by the color of our skin, the language we speak, the cultures we embrace, and the activities we, as individuals, involve ourselves in.
Because of our differences, all people have an inevitable tendency to classify, stereotype, and title.
We are afraid of what we do not know, so we decide to label others –these labels are often times very objectionable, false and demeaning.
In particular, hunters across America are frequently stereotyped by people who don’t understand why they hunt and what hunting stands for, leading to harmful and false classifications and illustrations of hunters.
In a survey conducted through Upper School advisories, students reported having heard derogatory titles of hunter, such as “meaningless killers,” “rednecks” and “animal murderers.”
Despite the eminent hatred towards hunting in America, in the survey 70 out of 110 students or 64 percent, reported that they approve, or at least tolerate hunting.
Hunters, in fact, follow a strict set of legal regulations and socially accepted standards to make hunting a respected, or at least accepted, sport.
These rules are in place to make sure hunting does not harm the population numbers of hunted species.
hunterWhat many people tend to misunderstand or just outright reject is that hunters actually help conserve habitats and moderate ecosystems, especially those with a lack of predator presence.
By harvesting the legal limit of animals per year, hunters prevent habitats from becoming overpopulated and essentially being used up and destroyed by potential overpopulation of certain species.
Furthermore, according to an article from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, hunters pay around $796 million dollars per year to conservation groups and agencies through license, tag, and stamp fees.
And that’s not all: through donations to hunting and conservation foundations, hunters give another $440 million per year towards “conservation efforts” (“25 Reasons Why Hunting is Conservation”).
What many anti-hunting individuals also reject is that hunters do not have an excessively unfair advantage over the hunted species.
The most popular way of hunting is known as fair chase because the hunted actually does have a fair chance of evading death, be it by detecting the hunter with one of many senses or by the hunter’s inability to take a successful shot.
When one relates human hunting to predators hunting, there is really not much difference. The predator has its advantages and skills over its prey, while the prey has its defensive skills and senses to evade the predator.
When the human is the predator, the human has the advantage of the weapon, be it firearm, bow, or spear (instead of a set of razor sharp teeth or claws, extreme speed or stealth, extraordinary strength, etc.), camouflage and the skill of animal calling, tracking, and/or marksmanship, while the hunted has its many advantages.
These include, but are not limited to, the extremely acute sense of smell and hearing, the ability to fly, the ability to run at speeds human cannot ever match, and natural camouflage.
For example, according to an article from IMB Monster Bucks, white tail deer have “up to 297 olfactory receptors” compared to a human’s mere 5 million (olfactory receptors are responsible for detecting odors) (Whitetail Deer’s Sense of Smell).
Additionally, as stated in an article on turkeyhunting.com, turkeys have a 360-degree range of vision and can see “much more crisply in daylight than a human with 20/20 sight.”
These advantages possessed by the hunted add to the challenging aspect of hunting and give the hunted a fair chance to evade death.
“Hunting is a very rewarding sport as success is only achievable through a great amount of time practice shooting, couting, and learning and adapting to the behaviors of your target,” said avid hunter sophomore Christian Fowler.
Most importantly, those who oppose the acts of hunting tend to reject the validity of the high standard of ethics that hunters possess while hunting, which is certainly the most shocking and most demeaning opinion in the eyes’ of a hunter.
Hunters hold the utmost respect for the animals they harvest and go to great measures to ensure that they treat the ecosystem, environment, and habitat with care.
They respect the land they have the opportunity to hunt on, and they certainly respect other hunters.
Junior Parker Rusack hunts ducks regularly during duck season and said, “hunting is a really great bonding experience with your hunting partner and nature. It’s great to be out in the field enjoying the wildlife. Additionally, ducks taste good, and that’s a main reason why I hunt them.”
Hunters do not kill just to kill. They do not shoot just anything that moves between the cross hairs.
Each individual hunter holds his or her standards, depending on size, species, age and a variety of other factors of the animal for what animal they will harvest.

Leave a Comment
Donate to The Fourth Estate
$50
$500
Contributed
Our Goal

Your donation will support the student journalists of Laguna Blanca School. Your contribution will allow us to purchase equipment and cover our annual website hosting costs.

More to Discover
Donate to The Fourth Estate
$50
$500
Contributed
Our Goal

Comments (0)

Please be polite and kind. Comments are subject to moderation.
All The Fourth Estate Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Activate Search
The Student News Site of Laguna Blanca School
Against the Stereotypes of Hunting: A Sports Commentary